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Dick Cheney:Q3 2001
''This is a new article. As such is has been set to unassessed. July July 3, 2001: Tenet Makes Urgent Request for Help from Allies CIA Director Tenet makes an urgent special request to 20 friendly foreign intelligence services, asking for the arrests of anyone on a list of known al-Qaeda operatives. POST, 5/17/2002 Also in late June, the CIA orders all its station chiefs overseas to share information on al-Qaeda with their host governments and to push for immediate disruptions of al-Qaeda cells. Vice President Cheney asks Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah for help on July 5, and counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke makes appeals to other foreign officials. As a result, several terrorist operatives are detained by foreign governments. According to a later analysis by the 9/11 Commission, this possibly disrupts operations in the Persian Gulf and Italy (see June 13, 2001) and perhaps averts attacks against two or three US embassies. For instance, al-Qaeda operative Djamel Beghal is detained by the French government in July and gives up information about a plot to attack the US embassy in France (see July 24 or 28, 2001). July 3, 2001: Cheney’s Lawyer Refuses to Speak with GAO over Task Force Documents David Addington, the chief counsel to Vice President Cheney, refuses to accept any more communications from the General Accounting Office (GAO) regarding the GAO’s attempt to learn about the doings of Cheney’s secret energy task force (see January 29, 2001 and May 16, 2001). Addington directs GAO officials to contact a lawyer at the Department of Justice with any further inquiries. ACCOUNTING OFFICE, 8/25/2003 Entity Tags: David S. Addington, National Energy Policy Development Group, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, General Accounting Office Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties July 5, 2001: Addington Refuses Watchdog Group’s Request for Energy Task Force Documents David Addington, the chief counsel for Vice President Dick Cheney, writes a three-sentence letter to the government oversight organization Judicial Watch, rejecting its request for the records of Cheney’s secret energy task force (see June 25, 2001). Addington uses the same argument he used to reject the General Accounting Office’s request for records of the task force (see June 7, 2001): since open-government laws do not apply to the task force, in his opinion, there will be “no disclosure of the materials you requested.” Judicial Watch will file a lawsuit demanding the task force’s records be made available to the public (see July 14, 2001). 2007, PP. 92 Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, David S. Addington, General Accounting Office, National Energy Policy Development Group, Judicial Watch Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties July 14, 2001: Watchdog Group Sues for Energy Task Force Records The conservative government watchdog organization Judicial Watch files a lawsuit demanding the release of documents pertaining to Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (see January 29, 2001 and May 16, 2001). Judicial Watch had requested that Cheney voluntarily turn over the records, a request his office denied (see July 5, 2001). 2007, PP. 92 Entity Tags: Judicial Watch, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, National Energy Policy Development Group Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties July 18, 2001: GAO Reiterates Request for Information Regarding Cheney’s Task Force The General Accounting Office, repeatedly rebuffed by Vice President Cheney’s office in its attempt to secure information about Cheney’s secret energy task force (see May 8, 2001, May 10-17, 2001, May 16 - 17, 2001, June 7, 2001, June 21, 2001, and July 3, 2001), sends a letter written by its head, Comptroller General David Walker, to Cheney. Walker notes the repeated rebuffs from Cheney’s chief counsel, David Addington, and others in his office, and once again lays out his request for information regarding the task force’s participants, minutes of meetings, and other relevant information. When Walker follows up his letter with a phone call to Cheney on July 30, Cheney will fail to take the call. ACCOUNTING OFFICE, 8/25/2003 Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, David S. Addington, David Walker, National Energy Policy Development Group, General Accounting Office Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties July 26, 2001: Cheney Turns Request for Records into Battle between White House, Congress ABC reporter Ted Koppel asks Vice President Dick Cheney about meetings with his “pals” from the oil and energy industries (see January 29, 2001 and April 17, 2001 and After). Koppel is referring to the attempts by Congress to be given the names of the participants in Cheney’s energy task force meetings. Cheney says: “I think it’s going to have to be resolved in court, and I think that’s probably appropriate. I think, in fact, that this is the first time the GAO Accountability Office has ever issued a so-called demand letter to a president/vice president. I’m a duly elected constitutional officer. The idea that any member of Congress can demand from me a list of everybody I meet with and what they say strikes me as—as inappropriate, and not in keeping with the Constitution.” Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will later write, “The vice president was deftly turning a request for records into a constitutional struggle between the legislative and executive branches.” Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), who issued the original requests before turning them over to the GAO, will put his demands for information on hold because of the 9/11 attacks and the war in Afghanistan, but the case will indeed end up in court (see February 22, 2002). AND BERNSTEIN, 2006, PP. 11-12 Entity Tags: Lou Dubose, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Government Accountability Office, Henry A. Waxman, Ted Koppel, Jake Bernstein, National Energy Policy Development Group Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties July 31, 2001: GAO Scales Back Request for Energy Task Force Documents The General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s chief, David Walker, backs down from his initial request for all pertinent documents and records of Vice President Cheney’s energy task force (see May 8, 2001). Instead, Walker modifies his request to ask for just the names of the lobbyists at the task force meetings, the dates of the meetings, the general topic(s) of discussion, and the cost of the meetings. Cheney will also refuse this request, and will escalate his rhetorical war against Walker and the GAO in defense of “executive privilege” (see July 26, 2001 and August 2, 2001). ACCOUNTING OFFICE, 8/25/2003 ; SAVAGE, 2007, PP. 92-93 Entity Tags: General Accounting Office, David Walker, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, National Energy Policy Development Group Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties August August 1, 2001: Cheney’s Lawyer Again Rebuffs GAO’s Request for Task Force Information Vice President Cheney’s chief counsel, David Addington, responds to the General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s offer to scale back its request for information regarding Cheney’s energy task force (see July 31, 2001) with another blanket refusal. Addington again asserts that the GAO has no authority to make such a request (see June 7, 2001). ACCOUNTING OFFICE, 8/25/2003 Entity Tags: David S. Addington, National Energy Policy Development Group, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, General Accounting Office Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties August 2, 2001: Cheney Accuses GAO of Exceeding Constitutional Authority in Energy Task Force Document Request Vice President Cheney sends a letter to Congressional leaders demanding that they order the General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s chief, David Walker, to immediately withdraw his request for records pertaining to Cheney’s secret energy task force (see July 18, 2001). Walker has already scaled back his initial request (see July 31, 2001), but Cheney asserts that even the limited information Walker is requesting would violate “the confidentiality of communications among a president, a vice president, the president’s other senior advisers, and others.” Cheney also rails against “actions undertaken by an agent of the Congress, the comptroller general Walker, which exceeded his lawful authority and which if given effect, would unconstitutionally interfere with the functioning of the executive branch.” 2007, PP. 93 The GAO notes that Cheney’s letter does not cite the specific information requested by the GAO, as required by law. ACCOUNTING OFFICE, 8/25/2003 Entity Tags: National Energy Policy Development Group, David Walker, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, General Accounting Office Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties August 4-30, 2001: Bush Nearly Sets Record for Longest Presidential Vacation President Bush spends most of August 2001 at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, nearly setting a record for the longest presidential vacation. While it is billed a “working vacation,” news organizations report that Bush is doing “nothing much” aside from his regular daily intelligence briefings. NEWS, 8/3/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 8/7/2001; SALON, 8/29/2001 One such unusually long briefing at the start of his trip is a warning that bin Laden is planning to attack in the US (see August 6, 2001), but Bush spends the rest of that day fishing. By the end of his trip, Bush has spent 42 percent of his presidency at vacation spots or en route. POST, 8/7/2001 At the time, a poll shows that 55 percent of Americans say Bush is taking too much time off. TODAY, 8/7/2001 Vice President Cheney also spends the entire month in a remote location in Wyoming. HOLE NEWS AND GUIDE, 8/15/2001 Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline August 14, 2001: Clinton Appointee Replaced at FERC by Enron Selection Curtis Hebert of the FERC. PBS Curtis Hebert is replaced by Pat Wood as the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Hebert announced his resignation on August 6. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, 12/2001 Hebert, a Clinton appointee who nevertheless is a conservative Republican, an ally of Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), and quite friendly towards the energy corporations, had been named to the FERC shortly before Clinton left office; Bush named him to chair the commission in January 2001. NEWS, 5/26/2006 Replaced at Enron Request - Hebert is apparently replaced at the request of Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, who did not find Hebert responsive enough in doing Enron’s bidding. Hebert had just taken the position of FERC chairman in January when he received a phone call from Lay, in which Lay pressured him to back a faster pace in opening up access to the US electricity transmission grid to Enron and other corporations. (Lay later admits making the call, but will say that keeping or firing Hebert is the president’s decision, not his.) When Hebert did not move fast enough for Lay, he is replaced by Pat Wood, a close friend of both Lay and President Bush. 5/26/2001; LOS ANGELES TIMES, 12/11/2001 Lay apparently threatened Hebert with the loss of his job if he didn’t cooperate with Enron’s request for a more pro-Enron regulatory posture. 1/14/2002 Opposed Enron Consolidation Plan - Hebert was leery of Enron’s plan to force consolidation of the various state utilities into four huge regional transmission organizations (RTOs), a plan that would have given Enron and other energy traders far larger markets for their energy sales. Hebert, true to his conservative beliefs, is a states’ rights advocate who was uncomfortable with the plan to merge the state utilities into four federal entities. Lay told Hebert flatly that if he supported the transition to the RTOs, Lay would back him in retaining his position with FERC. Hebert told reporters that he was “offended” at the veiled threat, but knew that Lay could back up his pressure, having already demonstrated his influence over selecting Bush administration appointees by giving Bush officials a list of preferred candidates and personally interviewing at least one potential FERC nominee (see January 21, 2001). 2/2/2002; CONSORTIUM NEWS, 5/26/2006 According to Hebert, Lay told him that “he and Enron would like to support me as chairman, but we would have to agree on principles.” 5/26/2001 Hebert added to another reporter, “I think he would be a much bigger supporter of mine if I was willing to do what he wanted me to do.” Lay recently admitted to making such a list of preferred candidates: “I brought a list. We certainly presented a list, and I think that was by way of letter. As I recall I signed a letter which, in fact, had some recommendations as to people that we thought would be good commissioners.…I’m not sure I ever personally interviewed any of them but I think in fact there were conversations between at least some of them and some of my people from time to time.” 2/2/2002 Cheney Behind Ouster - Joe Garcia, a Florida energy regulator, says he was interviewed by Lay and other Enron officials. After Hebert made it clear to Lay that he wouldn’t go along with Lay’s plans to reorganize the nation’s utilities, Vice President Dick Cheney, who supervises the Bush administration’s energy policies (see May 16, 2001, began questioning Hebert’s fitness. 5/26/2001 Cheney said in May 2001, “Pat Wood has got to be the new chairman of FERC.” In private, Cheney said then that Hebert was out as chairman and Wood was in, though Hebert did not know at the time that his days were numbered. 2/2/2002 “It just confirms what we believed and what we’ve been saying, that the Bush-Cheney energy plan is written by corporations and it’s in the interests of the corporations,” says the National Environmental Trust’s Kevin Curtis. 5/26/2001 Not only was Hebert not responsive enough to Lay’s pressure, but he had become a focus of criticism for his refusal to scrutinize Enron’s price gouging in the California energy deregulation debacle. Wood’s more moderate position helps ease the worries of other states themselves losing confidence in the Bush administration’s deregulation advocacy. PROSPECT, 1/2/2002 Hebert Investigating Enron Schemes - And even more unsettling for Enron, Hebert was beginning to investigate Enron’s complicated derivative-financing procedures, an investigation that may have led to an untimely exposure of Enron’s financial exploitation of the US’s energy deregulation—exploitation that was going on under plans nicknamed, among other monikers, “Fat Boy,” “Death Star,” “Get Shorty,” all of which siphoned electricity away from areas that needed it most and being paid exorbitant fees for phantom transfers of energy supposedly to ease transmission-line congestion. NEWS, 5/26/2006 “One of our problems is that we do not have the expertise to truly unravel the complex arbitrage activities of a company like Enron,” Hebert recently told reporters. “We’re trying to do it now and we may have some results soon.” 5/26/2001 Instead, Hebert is forced out of FERC. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called for an investigation into Enron’s improper influence of the FERC committee after the media revealed Lay’s phone call to Hebert in May 2001 (see May 25, 2001). Entity Tags: National Environmental Trust, Trent Lott, Kevin Curtis, Pat Wood, Kenneth Lay, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, George W. Bush, Curtis Hebert, Joe Garcia, Dianne Feinstein, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Enron Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record August 17, 2001: GAO Chief Reiterates Position regarding Cheney Task Force Information The General Accounting Office (GAO)‘s chief, Comptroller General David Walker, issues a report detailing the history of the GAO’s request for information regarding Vice President Cheney’s secret energy task force, and reiterating its request (see July 31, 2001). The report is sent to President Bush, Cheney, Congress, the attorney general, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It reads in part: “In communications with the vice president’s counsel… we offered to eliminate our earlier request for minutes and notes and for the information presented by members of the public. Even though we are legally entitled to this information, as a matter of comity, we are scaling back the records we are requesting to exclude these two items of information.… The GAO as an institution, and the comptroller general as an officer of the legislative branch, assist the Congress in exercising its responsibilities under the Constitution to oversee, investigate, and legislate. In order to help members of Congress carry out their role and evaluate the process used to develop the National Energy Policy, GAO needs selected factual and non-deliberative records that the vice president, as chair of the NEPDG Energy Policy Development Group, the formal name for Cheney’s task force, or others representing the Group, are in a position to provide GAO. The records we are requesting will assist the review of how the NEPDG spent public funds, how it carried out its activities, and whether applicable law was followed.” WALKER, 8/17/2001 ; NATIONAL REVIEW, 2/20/2002 Entity Tags: National Energy Policy Development Group, David Walker, General Accounting Office, John Ashcroft, Office of Management and Budget, George W. Bush, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Timeline Tags: Bush's Environmental Record, Civil Liberties Sept See References Category:Content